The ongoing heavy rains have had an impact on tomato supply at Laini Saba market in Kibera.
Buyers are now forced to dig deeper into their pockets to get the tomatoes which are in short supply.
Before the onset of the rains, a customer with just Sh10 could buy three tomatoes.
Currently, one tomato costs Sh10 while the parice of three is Sh20.
Mrs Dolphin Mogaka who sells tomatoes at the market on Wednesday attributed the rise in the commodity price to the low supply of tomatoes since the onset of the heavy rains.
She said suppliers have more than doubled their rates and are selling them a crate of tomato at between Sh6,500 and Sh7,500 unlike before when a crate would range between Sh2,500 –3,000.
“We are forced to increase the prices since the transportation of tomatoes has gone high due to the rains. We sell one tomato at Sh10 to meet the cost of buying as well as transportation so we too can make profit. Also, it takes a week to sell a small crate of tomatoes unlike before where it would last only two days. During the rainy season, tomatoes get spoiled easily and this makes us traders to incur huge losses,” Mogaka said.
She has urged her customers to cope with the situation and not shy away from buying from tomatoes adding that the situation will normalize once the rains stop.